On January 26, Lowell Fillmore “Sly” Dunbar joined the ancestors at age 73, after blazing a singular trail as the greatest reggae drummer of all time from his native Kingston, Jamaica. For nearly half a century Dunbar and partner bassist Robbie Shakespeare, who died in 2021, stood at the forefront of a musical revolution. Together, as Sly & Robbie, they bridged reggae, dancehall, rocksteady, and ska with R&B, funk, rock, and pop to redefine the sound of modern life.
Dunbar, who got his start with Peter Tosh, went on to drum for everyone from Grace Jones, Dennis Brown, and Jimmy Cliff to Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, and Sinéad O’Connor. His music became a fixture in the life of many, including photographer Deirdre O’Callaghan, who photographed and interviewed him in 2014 for her new book, The Drum Thing (Prestel). “Reggae was a constant throughout my teen years at home — Burning Spear, Junior Murvin, Peter Tosh, Ini Kamoze, Yellowman coming from my brother’s bedroom. Every Thursday, my brother and his friends put on a reggae night at the Donkeys Ears pub in Cork, Ireland. Every week that whole place was heaving,” O’Callaghan remembers.
Her love for the music brought O’Callaghan to Jamaica, where she photographed Dunbar at Anchor Studios, as well as his compatriot, Studio One session drummer Leroy “Horsemouth” Wallace at home tearing it up. Now O’Callaghan shares an exclusive excerpt from her interview with Dunbar reminiscing on his early days getting started. “Sly was so cool, he was practically gliding along the floor. And that accent!” O’Callaghan says. “I can still hear Sly talking about Earl Young of the Trammps, who I had just photographed the previous month (at his home in Philadelphia). There’s a thread throughout the book that connects the musicians to one another. I love that.”
“Earl Young is wicked, man. He’s one of my favorites. I got a lot of ideas from him, just the way he plays and the way he approach his sound, very steady. I listen to him a lot because I listen to a lot of Philadelphia, because I like RnB. I listen to all these people and I learn from them — some of the other Jamaican drummers like Mikey Boo, Phil Callender, Horsemouth himself, Paul Douglas, Santa [Carlton ‘Santa’ Davis]. So with all these people around, because I was like the last drummer that came in to play, I was the little one. And also Carlton Barrett from the Wailers, we were youngest. I tried to listen to a lot of this music and then I realized that I had to create a style and a sound for myself, and I wondered, how am I going to go about it, because these are some great drummers. I didn’t know if I could survive.
“When the Philly sound came in, I started listening to what Earl Young was doing… But what really helped me is like, after I played on Double Barrel [by Dave and Ansel Collins], there was a lull and then we went to Channel One recording studio. We used to beg free time whenever we didn’t have any money; we wanted to record ourselves. Ernest [Hoo Kim] would give us the time, and then in return I would make a track for Ernest and say, ‘This is your track.’ So the track I made for Ernest was ‘When the Right Time Comes’, which The Diamonds sang on, and he couldn’t believe it.
“Eventually it became a big, big hit, and the drum style that I played on it, everybody was saying, ‘No, this is a trick, he’s a boy, he’s not playing it like that live, man.’ Nobody believe, and so people used to come to the studio and try and peep in to see what I was doing. After this, Joseph [Hoo Kim] and Ernest from Channel One, they gave me the go ahead — they said, ‘Sly, it’s all yours, do what you want in it.’ So we used to listen to a lot of the Philadelphia records, and we used to try and get the same drum sound that Earl Young used to have. He’s one of my mentors, I respect him very much.”
